Chapter ONE.
One Crazy Summer Vacation
"Dara! Are you done with the glasses? I need to take them out NOW!" There went Seungri the Kitchen Nazy's insistent bellowing again. Ugh. I knew I was a teeny bit behind the schedule, but did he have to keep reminding about it? Elbow deep in suds, I quickly picked up the glass, and--
Ack! No! I spun around to see it fall, bounce, and finally shatter on the floor.
"SANDARA PARK! I have thirsty customer waiting!"
I jumped, dropped another glass, and cringed. This was it. I was going to be fired for sure. "What on earth is the matter with you?" All of the sudden, I was yanked away from the sink, my rubber gloves dripping all over the once-sparkling kitchen floor. I squeezed my eyes and shut and steeled myself for the worst.
The deafening sounds of the kitchen suddenly went mute. On top of all my problems, was I going deaf too? This job really was hazardous. I allowed myself a tiny peek through one eye and came face to face with Seungri's red, angry one. A vein in his forehead seemed to be twitching. I started to wonder how long it would take before it exploded. As I stared at it in fascination, a hiss came from his gritted teeth jolted me back to my current, embarrassing situation. "I gave you a chance because you were Mrs. Ong's niece, but this is the last straw. I can't have someone like you messing up my kitchen."
And there it was. The end of my career as a future Top Chef.
Before I could free myself from his tight grasp, he unceremoniously shoved in the direction of the trash bags and spat out, "Dishwashing duty is too good for you. I'm reassigning you to the trash. I was going to make you clean the floors, but I don't trust you with a mop."
I stumbled, afraid to look around, and peeled off my rubber gloves. I meekly handed them over to him, and dared one quick look around at the kitchen stuff. They were no longer staring at me or they probably never were, since they were used to Seungri's Nazy behavior. Maybe it was just my self-absorption that made me think I was always the center of attention. At least that's what my mom told me whenever she said she felt "a bout of drama coming on." Yeah, whatever. I knew something like this happened everyday. I wasn't the only one who felt the brunt of Seungri's wrath. But when it happened to you, you knew that for the rest of the day, you were toast.. your goose was cooked.. and you'd definitely jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
I'd been interning for a couple of weeks at 2NE1BANG, my Aunt's cozy restaurant that prided itself on serving home cooked meals with a vengeance. Everytime I stepped into it's welcoming country-inspired interiors, the mouthwatering smells of rosemary baked chicken and bread fresh out of the oven never failed to send my tummy grumbling and my hands itching to cook something.
Ever since I was a child, I loved being in the kitchen. Whether it was running to my mom with different ingredients as she tossed a quick meal together or mixing the batter for some of her ready mix pancakes, being in the kitchen was my safety zone. Somehow, the different combination of smells always sent my mind spiraling into a realm of tasty possibilities.
Because my mom eas too busy being a bank VP to really care how much her kitchen had to offer, her cooking skills were limited to premixes and easy, unimaginative recipes. It was actually her sister, my Aunt, who recognized that like her, I was enthralled by throwing different ingredients together. It was my Aunt who took my flour covered hands and showed me how they could knead sticky, gooey dough that turned warm golden brown inside an oven. So naturally, it was my Aunt who suggested I intern at her restaurant over the summer to nurture what she had planted in me years ago. Or so I thought.
As I lugged the humongous trash bags out the door, I realized I wasn't that upset. I'd have thought that yet another encounter with Kitchen Nazy would bring me to tears. My Aunt explicity told me not to antagonize her kitchen manager, Seungri the Nazy. But when I met him, I could tell that he loathed me on the spot. And I knew why. My Aunt adored me, and that me untouchable. So Seungri did his best to make my life miserable.
Yes, I was in the kitchen but I wasn't allowed to do anything interesting. Seungri didn't even let me gather the ingredients and line them up so a cook could do the chopping, dicing, or julienning. That made it so hard for me to do a good job. Plus, there was the nagging fear that maybe he saw something I didn't. Of course my Aunt would encourage me. She was supposed to do that. But what if Seungri, who had worked with a lot of chefs, actually wasn't being a and just objectively knew I couldn't measure up? I mean, really, why would he sentence me to washing dishes day in day out if I actually had talent? Scratch that. It just dawned on me how much worse my situation had become. Why would he sentence me to taking tout the trash in and day out?
"Dara? Is that you?"
I looked up with a loud grunt (restaurant trash are heavy, you know) and saw one of my college blockmates Kwon Jiyong staring at me with a look of disbelief in his face. He had a cigarette in one hand and an iPhone in the other. I wondered how he had gotten all the way to the back where the trash was just for his nicotine fix. Did smoking dull your sense of smell? I was so not glad to see him.
I admit that when I first saw Mateo, he was on my list as one of the cutest boys in class. But when I found out he was one of those people who willingly clustered around the little area in school where they corralled all the smokers, his cuteness rating immediately took a nosedive and my little crush was quickly extinguished. Which is what I wished he would do with his cig.
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